Let me state first of all that the Burka and the Hijab, etc. are not in and of themselves either liberationary nor are they progressive. BUT Muslims do not wear them, in a cultural and societal vacuum, and although it can be worn as a sign of religious piety, it can also be worn as a rejection of what is seen as certain western hypocrisies.

As Mihret Woldesemait, from DUKE UNIVERSITY Durham, North Carolina, in ‘Unfolding the Modern Hijab: From the Colonial Veil to Pious Fashion’ on April 15, 2013, notes in her abstract “However, in the 1970s, a new veiling movement emerged that appropriated the veil as a sign of an authentic identity and an instrument to accommodate a changing modern world. This neo-veiling movement, furthermore, standardized a set of Islamic norms and practices that would use the veil as the embodiment of inner piety and ethical states” https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e8eb/60382147f088e659479a3ac7d3d9cfaa703c.pdf

In one sense we have been here before, concerning the anti-Muslim prejudice around the burka. Last time around in 2016 it was concerning the Burkini and Muslim women being fined on French beaches for wearing one. Although the ban was welcomed, by the FN (of course), and certain ‘liberal’ feminists and centre right etc. it was also enforced by a number of communist mayors in the south of France.

Back in 2016, the specific context was the appealing treatment and the subsequent vilification of refugees and migrants in Calais. Yet as Al Jazeera made clear; “The number of refugees who arrived on Europe’s shores plunged by nearly two-thirds last year, but the number of those who died on the often perilous journey in the Mediterranean Sea rose sharply, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the EU border agency Frontex has said.

This did not stop the usual rent a-reactionaries here and in Europe back in 2016, deciding that throwing refugees and migrants under a bus was a public duty. The nasty over spill over, came the right-wing tabloids and broadsheets, plus sections of social media who whipped up imaginary fears of a migrant invasion; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35609823,

But to move it onto 2018, it as quite clear to many that BoJo, far from being a jaw jutting, truth to power, iconoclast, was taking the opportunity and using his privilege to punch down in his comments about what Muslim women look like when wearing the Burka. This while claiming he was writing from a ‘liberal’ position of live and let live.

We have to see the current discussion as being rooted in terms of colonialism and the anti-colonialist struggles that resulted especially over the next 60-70 years. Part of the discourse of colonialism was to posit itself as the “Enlightenment” against the savage oriental, ‘other’. The banning of the veil (akin to the banning of the kilt and tartan in both Scotland and Ireland) was not liberation, but rather a social and cultural form of domination. It was based upon a presumption of the superiority of western civilisation and western values. In turn, it made the point that those who opposed it, had to be backward savages.

“This woman, who sees without being seen, frustrates the coloniser as she opposes the colonisers’ standards of liberation, she asserts an identity, and even power, of her own, thus refusing to acknowledge the validity of, and inherent power in, her coloniser’s unveiling, subjugation and rape of her own culture” (Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism).

Yes the veil, Hijab, Naqab, burka, etc. are pieces of cloth but they are also much more than just pieces of cloth, if one see’s what I mean, in that they occupy as much of a social space as a religious one, and in case anyone has forgotten, then let me remind them, that we live in an imperialist country. This in turn means that the critiques of the veil, Hijab, Burka, etc. from the right and certain liberals is taking place in a current context of Islamophobia that pretends its progressive. See http://www.ox.ac.uk/…/2016-09-02-veil-worn-muslim-women

Those defending Boris Johnson (BoJo) point to, as one of them put it to me online “submission to a hard-core religious conservative dress and politics that challenges the liberal society we all live in”. And yet, Argentina has bowed (yet again) recently to the dictates of Pope inspired authoritarianism by rejecting abortion. Denmark, along with Belgium and France has brought in authoritarian anti-Muslim laws that claim they are to do with liberating Muslim women.

I also find it odd, that those defending BoJo, who like to talk about the primacy of belief without interference, seem to think that Muslims can afford to be made an exception. That’s even before we get onto the assumption that wearing the veil if a Muslim woman, makes one defacto a “hard core religious, conservative”, though being the latter has never bothered right wingers before if they are Christian.

The imposition of disrobing, (see the French in Algeria during the colonial period) were not about “liberation”, rather it was a top down attempt to build up a modern society, in both countries it was an attempt to attract a new native client base to French nationalism. The resistance to a ban on the face veil took many forms, and Fritz Fanon, (see above) exhibited but one of them in his writings. It also mirrors that of the developments and strands that can take place within anti-colonialism.

In the case of the FNLA in Algeria, they were in favour of a modern society including the panoply of women’s rights. Yet at the same time they saw the French as just changing the parameters of objectification; Arab women were/are still subject to the exoticisation of orientalism and this is still a very valid point for today.

It is at this point that I’d like to develop the point about how the veil and putting it on/taking it off has become the symbol of imposition of modernity and resisting colonialism. On January 24th 2017, Katarzyna Falecka, in ‘The Conversation’ noted in ‘From colonial Algeria to modern day Europe, the Muslim veil remains an ideological battleground’, ‘Fantasies of unveiling’ that “Throughout the 19th century, the Muslim veil functioned as an object of fascination for European travellers to the Middle East, despite the fact that Christians and Druzes –a religious sect with origins in 11th-century Egypt – would also veil. European photographers in the region produced eroticised representations of women lifting their veils and exposing their naked bodies. Reproduced as postcards, these images circulated across the Mediterranean, constructing the image of a Muslim woman whose erotic powers could be unleashed once the veil was lifted.

But in the 1950s, the veil played an important role during the Algerian war of independence against French colonial rule. Frantz Fanon, a Martinique-born psychiatrist and anti-colonial intellectual, described the French colonial doctrine in Algeria as follows: If we want to destroy the structure of Algerian society, its capacity for resistance, we must first of all conquer the women; we must go and find them behind the veil where they hide themselves and in the houses where the men keep them out of sight.

Fanon was a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front who considered women’s ill treatment by the French army to embody the whole country’s situation. For him, it was impossible for the colonial power to conquer Algeria without winning over its women to European “norms”.

Maria Boariu in 5.1 of, ‘The Veil as Metaphor of French Colonized Algeria’ states in the section, ‘V.1. THE VEIL FOR THE COLONIZERS’

“Barrier to Visual Control: Before discussing the colonizer’s attitude towards the veiled woman, a brief overview of the modern discourse on transparency is needed. The 18th century brought the ideal of a perfect transparent world. Rousseau’s ideal was a transparent society. In 1787, Jeremy Bentham elaborated the plan of the Panopticon. It was an architectural figure that consisted in a tower central to an annular building divided into cells.

The occupants of the cells were isolated from one another by walls and subject to scrutiny by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. The Panopticon thus allowed seeing without being seen. For Foucault, such asymmetry of seeing-without-being-seen is the very essence of power because ultimately the power to dominate rests on the differential possession of knowledge20.

The metaphor of the one that is seen without being able to see the observer turned to be the most dramatic frustration the French colonists experienced in Algeria. Veiled woman could see the foreign colonizer, but the colonizer could not see her. The veil became a barrier to the visual control of the Western eye.

Anger, frustrated desire and fantasy gave a distinctive character to French colonization in Algeria. The veil was seen as the concrete manifestation of resistance by the colonized to an imposed reciprocity: veiled women were able to see without being seen. Colonist desire was thus articulated as the desire to unveil Algeria, for women’s insistence on wearing the veil meant the colony’s resistance to the French authority.

French Men’s Attitude towards Veiled Women

‘If we want to destroy the structure of Algerian society, its capacity for resistance, we must first of all conquer the woman; we must go and find them behind the veil where they hide themselves and in the houses where the men keep them out of sight.’ Frantz Fanon. A Dying Colonialism.p.23 Why did “la mission civilisatrice” have women as the first “target”? Since veiled women served as metaphors for Oriental culture, the political strategy did not have exclusively a military character.

According to F. Fanon, the French colonizers perceived Algerian women as embodying the true and authentic self of Algerian culture. Since they represented the essence of the culture that was colonized, having access to them and their bodies symbolized the means for a successful penetration to the heart of the colonized culture. As a consequence, a metaphorical link between “Woman” and “Colony” was established21. In this context, the veiled woman (the other sex) and the colony (the other culture) were related. Colonies themselves were idealized as female.” http://www.jsri.ro/old/html%20version/index/no_3/maria_boariu-articol.htm

The examples given, as they relate to the UK do predate the current outrage over Boris’s anti-Muslim comments. But since he made those comments, Boris Johnson, has been encouraged to get his inner Enoch on by his fellow conservatives, and opinion polls. There have also been a number of recent attacks (August 2018) on Muslim women. What they have shared with BoJo is their distaste of Muslim women, while at the same time complaining about how Islam is oppressing them.

They were also outraged over the fact that the ‘Grid Girls’, female models who parade on the starting grid and stand with the drivers’ name boards before every grand prix were axed from Formula One. So, In the UK context we have British sections of the establishment in politics and the fourth estate, pretending that punching down on the marginalised, in this case Muslim women, is somehow them being ‘feminists’ and standing up for women’s rights.

These political acts are coming from the same people, who brought us; “Hostile Environment”, Prevent programme, “Go Home” vans, description of migrants and refugees as a “swarm”, Windrush, Grenfell, “If you want a nigger for your neighbour”, “rivers of blood” and constant Daily Mail/Express/Evening Standard headlines warning about ‘The Muzzie in our Midst’.

Being anti-Muslim (while pretending that your anti-Islam) is low hanging fruit for the right and far right and so, no wonder they are so eager to pluck it. Oh and for those still trying to a square BoJo into a round hole of women’s rights, he’s quoted in the Guardian as saying “It was as though the whole county of Hampshire was lying back and opening her well-bred legs, to be ravished by the Italian stallion.”

Trigger Warning-some might find the images distressful, and my apologies if this is so

A Language Lit by Fire

Did you know that fire has several different voices and that it speaks with its own language? That it can whisper low and soft, all full of warmth and innocence, when tamed in the grate of a cottage fire grate…That it hisses with a vengeful glee when allowed to breath and that it can cackle with malevolence when given more to eat? No wonder it was a source of worship for the ancestors, and why the Gods punished Prometheus for stealing it from them

The Grenfell towers was a tower of babel, a monument to a multiculturalism that came about through few options, poverty, of making friendships, relationships, education, raising families. The towers stand as shells of dreams, amidst the city of the human deluge, and now exist as if in a time capsule.

Yet all the data in the world cannot recapture the life, the loves, the hopes, the disappointments, the thousand and one days and nights that went on behind closed doors. The angry gestures, the romantic words, the erotic fumbling’s after a Friday/Saturday night…the halo of light around the fried chicken shop, that said tonight was over

Bonfire of austerity-Spent and burnt out

Exactly How Does the Human Body Burn?

The sages would have us know that “the thin outer layers of skin fry and begin to peel off as the flames dance across their surface. Then, after around 5 minutes, the thicker dermal layer of skin shrinks and begins to split, allowing the underlying yellow fat to leak out”.

The researchers say, like the scalds of old with hoarded knowledge, “that the average body can, a little like a tree branch and up burn to around seven hours?” For men and women the average body consists of between 55-65% of water and that the average body fat will be between 24-31%

In a time when capitalism has lifted all those leaky poverty stricken boats, don’t believe that a tower block full of “all of human life is here” can’t take less than 15 minutes to catch fire and over 60 hours to burn out.

If the ancient Greeks had seen the Grenfell tower, would they think it one of the Palaces of Hades, seeing as it is slap next to the opulent palaces of the super rich. The outside cladding is as black as his heart and the natures of the wealthy; he would have appreciated their cold-blooded arrogance, because you are all equal when you are dead.

What does a bowl of smoke taste like, what it is to burn? What’s the smell of burning human flesh?

Slate magazine noted in 2007, “ Police in Houston reported, “The remains of a woman who had been strangled by her ex-boyfriend may have been burned over a barbecue on his balcony. * Neighbour’s said they noticed an awful, acrid odour coming from the grills for two days. You’ll know it when you smell it. Burning muscle tissue gives off an aroma similar to beef in a frying pan, and body fat smells like a side of fatty pork on the grill. But you probably won’t mistake the scent of human remains for a cookout.

That’s because a whole body includes all sorts of parts that we’d rarely use for a regular barbecue. For example, cattle are bled after slaughter, and the beef and pork we eat contain few blood vessels. When a whole human body burns, all the iron-rich blood still inside can give the smell a coppery, metallic component.

Full bodies also include internal organs, which rarely burn completely because of their high fluid content; they smell like burnt liver. Fire fighters say that cerebrospinal fluid burns up in a musky, sweet perfume.

Nonetheless in June, as part of a long hot summer, they hardly expected their bodies and souls would be fuel for the ‘bonfire of the red tape and regulations’ vanities. Is it still ‘corporate murder’, if you’ve been to all the right schools, clubs and sit on the right charity boards? And smoke? Don’t you know it is bad for you? That “smoke gets in your eyes”, and mouth, lungs, ears, hair, especially when your trying to escape with your kids from a burning building…”burning down the house… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNnAvTTaJjM

To the Soul?

For the ancient Athenians, it was customary to place the ashes of the deceased beloved one in an urn. They had a horror of an unmarked death, with none of the proper rites and rituals being observed. Hence the humbling of King Priam, during the Trojan War, where he begs Achilles, the noble psychotic for the return of his son Hectors, body.

For the multitude within those walls, the ghosts that have no fingers to tear through the veil that keeps them from the world there will be no preparation of the the body, that gets washed and anointed. No payment for the ferryman of the dead to convey the soul from the world of the living to the world of the dead.

As far as the state was concerned, many of those who died in a blaze of fear, agony, curdled and crisped, were already ghosts, not meant to be here, until caught.

The modern age, the lack of status for those consumed, means that those who have the task of finding them, have to go as Yevgeny Yevtushenko, said in his poem ‘Loss’, “like an old blind woman madly stretching her hand in fog, searching with hopeless incantation for her lost milk cow”

And “Fires were started” or Götterdämmerung

What it is to burn? What it is, to find a home, transformed into a portal to hell? What it is to feel the body being consumed by the devil, to have his hands so tight round your throat that you cannot scream for pities sake or your own? There are 200 pain receptors for every centimetre of the body. What it is to smell your bowels opening, hear the shriek of the flames as they claim you as one of their own?

In Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelung” Brünnhilde issues orders for a huge funeral pyre to be assembled by the river. Lighting the pyre with a firebrand, she sends Wotan’s ravens home. The fire flares up, and the hall of the Gibichungs catches fire and collapses, a red glow is seen in the sky. Flames flare up in the Hall of the Gods, hiding it and them from sight completely. And the gods are consumed in the flames.

I hope the residents of Grenfell would have understood Yevgeny Yevtushenko, when he wrote, “Is it true that we no longer exist? Or are we not yet born? We are birthing now, but it’s painful to be born again”.

There is a line from a Public Enemy song that starts out, “Brothers & sisters…I don’t know what this world is coming to”. So, now it is official, Donald Trump, the billionaire is now the 45th President of the United States of America. Few can say with any dignity, that they ‘knew’, this would happen. Trump, is not the ‘ordinary’, run of the mill reactionary, as we’d expect from the Republicans in particular and the right in general. His campaign and his inauguration speech had strong touches of the ‘nation needs a strong man’ type that we’ve heard before around the world, in the 30’s and 40’s, in the 60’s and 70’s.

Let us be clear, Trump is a bully, a thug, an exploiter of the workers. He is a sexist and misogynist, a racist, both a homophobe and transphobe. What’s more he’s got several like-minded people in his cabinet. He’s mentioned about the register of Muslims, wants to deport more “illegals” than Obama, and Trump, still plans on building that wall on the Mexican border. He’s abolished the endowment for the arts, dismantled the office for climate change, and wants to attack abortion rights

Saying all of this is by no means to let either Obama or Hillary off the hook, far from it. But they are at least prepared to still do ‘normal’ politics, and while they do, this still provides for those of us on the left, a political space to organise openly. In the case of Trump, for the first time in living memory the GOP controls both the house and the senate. There is a strong chance that the Supreme Court will be balanced towards the conservatives. The qualitative difference is also that malign, right-wing forces outside the right-wing of the GOP are gathering, who feel that they have political legitimacy now that “daddy” is now in charge.

Regarding the resistance to Trump, I have no doubt that various liberals in and out of the Democratic Party will try to use that as an opportunity to rehabilitate the Killeray. No doubt this figures in the thinking of the organisers of the Women’s March in America. That must be resisted as much as possible. In part, it was her role as being the Corporate Candidate that led to her loosing. It was her open contempt for w/c people, her espousal of muscular intervention in the M/E. She and her outriders cannot be allowed to dictate the parameters of what for the resistance will take. Her m/c faux feminism of privilege, has failed w/c women on so many levels. So Trump being bad does not automatically make her ‘good’.

The real resistance will come from below and will come from the workers themselves. Not being directed like a stage army. It will come from the Muslim woman doctor who’s also involved in a housing group. It will come from the fireman, who helps out at a soup kitchen. It will come from women’s groups that give out information about DV, abortions and contraception. It will come from the trade unionist, that steps forward to stop his Hispanic comrade from being deported

The resistance will be from the trans lawyer, who builds up a case to stop big business from poisoning the local water. The resistance will be from the lesbian mum bringing up a son, the gay dad bringing up a daughter. The resistance will come from different quarters, like a thousand flowers blooming. There will no doubt be much-needed analysis of the demo, the people on it, who organised it and where we go from there. Primo Levi in the ‘Drowned and the Saved’ warns and reminds us that the unimaginable can happen again. That a would-be tyrant is waiting in the wings, with “beautiful words” on his lips. Little did he know, that such a person would end up, sitting with all the misplaced, imperial, hauteur of a Nero, in the White House

A protestor holds up a banner reading ‘I’m too young to be this angry’, as thousands protest against Government’s austerity policies in 2012

First of all, this is meant for the most part to be an observation, as opposed to a died-in the wool political article.

I have been a political activist for most of my adult life, though I came to it rather than being born into a political family. So, I have been part of and (I hope) shaped at least in a small way, some of the political debates and discussions from the past.

I mention this to point out that I have been on more than my fair share of demonstrations, meetings, occupations, picket lines, etc. Over the last two-three years however, I would say from 2012 or 2013, something different has been taking place on these demos. I must say at this point, that I can only speak for the UK, as that is where I am based, so I’d be interested in the experiences of other comrades in other parts of the world.

The demonstrations that I have been on, before then tended to be of a muchness in that we marched from A-B This was a common complaint on sections of the left, including the more *ahem, wilder section of anarchists who just want to smash shit up. While I can understand the frustration, it also misses the point. Which is to make a visible protest not to warm our-selves, at the glow of seeing Starbucks go up in flames.

These demonstrations tended to be organised in conjunction with various sections of the trade union bureaucracy, and various other groups linked to it, such as the; People’s Assembly, StW (Stop the War), Hope not Hate, UAF, (United Against Fascism), etc. It should be noted that although a trade union can give support to/organise a demo/meeting that is not a guarantee of mass attendance. Yet, on a consistent basis, I have seen people attending these demos in the tens of thousands, and at times, the hundreds of thousands.

But the point I am getting to (my apologies if this has been a tad long winded), is that unlike in the past, it could be said there has been a mass attendance of what might be termed “ordinary people” at these demonstrations. I would venture to say that there has been, within a relatively short space of time, a dramatic change in the attendance and political demographic. Let me explain, on the demonstrations, rallies, etc. that I have been on, what might be called ‘the usual suspects’ are there in the form of left-wing newspaper sellers and bookstalls.

Nothing wrong with that by the way, but added to them and outnumbering them by a thousand to one (if not more) are the masses of young to middle aged people that are either newly active or have been called back to activism over a particular set of issues. Whether it is over refugees or against Trident, etc.

I would say, that they are left-leaning; many are in or were the Labour Party, involved at some level in the trade union movement, in the public or charitable sector, or in education, students, committed to a (somewhat reformist) radical politics. I have also noticed that on these demonstrations, they have become more of a family friendly event. In many ways, this is a reflection of the fluidity of the social relations in various forms of social democracy.

So, as part of a demonstration, there will be various autonomous groups with a sound system, the Hare Krishna’s, will be giving out free vegetarian food, mum, dad and the kids will also be in attendance, along with various buggies and push chairs. Also, for reasons I have never understood, demonstrators seem compelled to take their bikes along, and the stewarding is not as rigorous as it was in the past.

So, is this all a major problem for those of us on the left? I do think it is for these reasons. Whatever its faults in the past, the standard demonstration was working to a basic understanding of challenging major aspects of capitalism, it was a physical manifestation that Labour and trade union leaders viewed with a certain wariness.

What has replaced this has been political atomisation, rejection of political structure. This is combined with a more hazy understanding of the relationship between the citizen and state. There is a tacit looking towards solutions that will come through the election(s) of an electoral saviour. I’m not arguing for the clock to be turned back by the way.

But it is a worrying trend that the changing nature and demographic of demonstrations has come alongside a certain passivity. It seems that activists are expected to tailor their message to avoid putting off a new audience, that rather than raise the political threshold, the expectation is that we lower our horizons.

As anyone who has read any articles or comments in Spiked, it does not take long before at least one of them evokes the words “The enlightenment”, and/or “Humanism”. So, much so, that at times, it can take on the characteristic of a superstitious incantation and with as much meaning.

So, in this blog piece as to Spiked/IoL and the Enlightenment, I’d like to actually look at what it was and why it is that for them, they are so eager to weaponise it. In regards to the Enlightenment and Humanism, please remember that this is not meant to be a detailed critique, though that may well result post the discussion of this. The basic points are below.

What in brief do Spiked, mean by “Enlightenment Humanism”?

What Marxists mean by this same term

Why Spiked are wrong

Frank Ferudi, ex-head of the RCP Political Committee and the defacto head of Spiked had this to say in 2013 with regards to the enlightenment and humanism. In a lecture for and filmed by WorldWrite, (the Video and digital arm of Spiked) called ‘What is Humanism?’ “While humanist ideas have been around for a long time”, he observes, “they have never been more weakly affirmed than at present.

In ancient as well as Renaissance times, thinkers struggled with questions around what forces determine our destiny and began to formulate ideas that human beings themselves, rather than God or nature, had a responsibility for making the world. Humanism, we learn, begins to flourish in Renaissance Italy and finds more mature expression in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Modern determinisms such as nineteenth-century economic determinism – or today’s eco-determinism, biological determinism or psychological determinism – are all really evasions or excuses that diminish our own sense of taking responsibility for what happens.

In an earlier article from 2006, called ‘Putting the human back into humanism’, he was equally trenchant when he said, “It is easy to dismiss the legacy of humanism. All too often humanism presents itself in a caricatured form. Today, it seems it can only come alive through reliving its past struggles with religious dogma. Thus most people regard humanism as a secular movement defined by its hostility to religion and its passionate affirmation of atheism.

This is not surprising, considering that many humanists do take pride in their secular values and attach great importance to their anti-religious sentiments. The secular standpoint was clearly outlined in A Humanist Manifesto, published in 1933 and signed by many prominent humanists (3). Although that manifesto traced the foundation of humanism to the exercise of reason, its main focus was on settling scores with religion.

There is little doubt that humanism emerged through a conflict with organised religion. But there is so much more to humanism than that. It is not a secular cult of man but an open-ended perspective that seeks to grasp the truth through human experience. As Sartre argued, humanism is not a static project, but an orientation realised through the exercise of human subjectivity (4)”. http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/2044#.VsobhcfBHHQ

In the article above, Frank Ferudi spends over half the space attacking the environmental movement for, as he see’s it fostering in humanity that of low expectations. For example, “Many influential theories – intelligent design, Gaia theory, chaos theory – self-consciously seek to make the human subject marginal. And yet, the humanist critics of religious obscurantism such as creationism are oblivious to these more influential tendencies, which regard human beings as just another species.

The influence of environmental determinism is especially striking. In this worldview, human beings are assigned a minor and undistinguished role in the general scheme of things. It is argued that any attempt by people to gain control over their destinies is likely to be undermined by the forces of nature.

Moreover, the very attempt to control nature is described as the act of a destructive species that does not know, or refuses to accept, its place in the natural order. Instead of celebrating man’s efforts to transform nature, history and civilisation have been recast as a story of environmental destruction. From such a standpoint, the application of reason, knowledge and science can easily be dismissed as problems since they help to intensify the destructive capacity of the human species. ‘Humans are, literally, a species out of control’, notes one misanthropic writer (5). In other words, humanism itself is the problem”

I think that what we have here is what is called, in the latter part of the article, what is called a ‘straw man argument’. A critique of environmentalism turns into an alleged lack of faith on the part of humanists. I find this very strange, as it presumes that humanists are a monolithic block with settings set eternally to pessimism. It also seems that noting the mistakes that humanity have made both socially, and environmentally is the same as wanting a society of wattle and daub huts.

In the section called ‘Humanising humanism’, Frank Ferudi says that, “It is perverse that twenty-first-century society, which relies so much on human ingenuity and science, also encourages deference to Fate.

At a time of widespread disenchantment with humanity’s achievements, it is important to restore confidence in the capacity of people to reason and to influence events. This is the challenge facing everyone who upholds a human-centred worldview. The task may appear as a modest one compared to the grand visions of the past, but in our anti-humanist, pre-political era its realisation is a precondition for the restoration of a human politics.

Reconstituting a sense of agency and historical thinking is the pre-requisite for re-engaging the public with political life. It requires that we uphold humanity’s past achievements, including standards of excellence and civilised forms of behaviour and values. Far from representing a yearning for the good old days, overcoming our alienation from the legacy of human achievement helps us deal with the issues thrown up by change today. It is through drawing on the achievements of the past that we can embrace change in the future with enthusiasm”.

If I can understand this correctly, he thinks that there is a moral failing upon those who call themselves humanists for not striving for, as Labour Party Social democrats would say “Jerusalem”.

Another thing that one notices about, Spiked is that it veers between moral exhortation and the fetishisation of technology. They do acknowledge the great events of the 20th/21st century, yet at the same time dismiss the more negative one’s on the popular consciousness.

The working class has let them down by not being open to political persuasion of how much they should need revolutionary communism, Marxist-Leninism, Socialism, etc. Therefore the blame lies with a society, as in the welfare state and the soft power liberals that run it, that have infantilised people.

So, what do Marxists mean by enlightenment humanism? First of all let me state that I am by no means a theoretician, so I will not take offence if I am corrected on a number of the following points.

The term “Marxist humanism” has at the heart of it that the notion of alienation remains a part of Marx’s philosophy. Teodor Shanin and Raya Dunayevskaya herself go further, asserting that not only is alienation present in the late Marx, but that there is no split between the young Marx and mature Marx.

The early Marx, influenced by Feuerbach’s humanistic inversion of Hegelian idealism, articulated a concept of species-being, according to which man’s essential nature is that of a free producer, freely reproducing their own conditions of life.

However, under capitalism individuals are alienated from their productive activity insofar as they are compelled to sell their labor-power as a commodity to a capitalist; their sensuous life-activity, or labor, thus appears to them as something objective, a commodity to be bought and sold like any other.

To overcome alienation and allow man to realise his species-being, therefore, the wage-labor system itself must be transcended, and the separation of the labourer from the means of labor abolished. While Marxists of course recognise a more general humanity that exists in all, we do not view it in simple, liberal, bourgeois, terms. The division of labour that exists within capital means we recognise the objective conditions of capital make it impossible for the majority to realise their full potential.

Society as it is structured, means that any advance that currently takes place, comes to us via the prism of profit and this also works in reverse as well. Victor Gunasekara in ‘Karl Marx as a Humanist’ wrote that, “Central to Marx’s philosophy was his humanism which he had embraced quite early in his life. There has been little appreciation of Marx’s humanist views by modern Humanists. Many of them have denigrated Marx foisting on him views that he never supported.

Such Humanists have often fallen prey to the general prejudices of their age and participated in the anti-communist hysteria which had been whipped up by the ruling political and religious establishments. Had they put into effect the Humanist principle of the rational evaluation of all ideas in their own right and in connection with their implications for the freedom and weal of humanity they may perhaps have come to a different conclusion”

What one can take from this, is an acknowledgment that as what might be termed ‘official marxism’ was collapsing around the world, notably Eastern Europe, there was a stepping back from it as a means of denying any previous association. Or just as worse, attempting to knock off, as it was seen, the more awkward bits. This can be seen, in the treatment of ‘Worldwrite’, of C.L.R.James, whose been turned from a political activist and political theoretician, into a distant man of letters and cricket.

So, why are Spiked wrong, in terms of how they view/explain enlightenment humanism. In my view, they mistake form with content, they claim that they do not want to return back to a venerated past. Yet each serious article/conference they hold on this subject says otherwise. Just as importantly, I do not think that their views on enlightenment humanism can be separated from their social conservatism.

As far as they are concerned there is no longer in the west, phenomena such as; racism, imperialism, women’s and gay oppression. They regard the main problem, as they see it the “nanny state”, (a term that from its inception was coined by forces of the right here in the UK), as being a barrier towards people’s potential.

On one, level, they would be in accordance with Marx who called for a “withering away of the state”, but when he said this, this was as part of the w/c sizing the means of production. Many of the Spiked supporters want to see the state disappear (many of them are now members of the petite bourgeoise with eyes on better things) and are not concerned with its replacement of anything better.

Keeping people ‘lean and mean’, seems to be a policy that veers between a sort of Max Max (the remake) dystopia and capitalism unleashed from the states shackles. Either way, it smacks of the sort of authoritarianism they claim to be against. Last year, Spiked published what might be termed its economic policy. This was significant as up until that point the conclusions to the majority of their articles had ended with calling upon people to resist; nudge policies, PC culture, etc but no real vision worth any practicality of what they wanted beyond that. It was though, pointed out to me, that if those economic policies were carried out, that the economic retrenchment needed could only be done along the lines of the complete immiseration of the working class.

They think that because of laws against discrimination and on human rights, that this is a barrier on people’s innate freedom’s. There is an added irony here, in that though the original bill of rights recorded that people had certain inalienable rights, they excluded women and ethnic minorities, precisely because they were not regarded as human. Therefore it was perfectly logical to discriminate against them, so for an organisation that wants people to shake off the shackles of the state, they are effectively arguing for a state, that will have inequality built in .

They seem unable to conceive the fact that current bourgeoise, capitalist society, has been able to make certain concessions, sometimes through the sustained political pressure from unions, oppressed groups and at other times if it feels that the common good will not be too much disturbed. But the cause of the current anti enlightenment thought seems to be for Spiked, to be a case of secular original sin. We have fallen from grace because we no longer believe in God and Shakespeare, or as the Russian poet Yvgenny Yuteshenko wrote, “we no longer believe…in our…old, great books”.

If I understand them correctly, the retreat from “enlightenment values” is that of the tolerance of being intolerance. By that, I presume they mean that the right to issue a racial slur against black people is more important than a black persons right not to be insulted.

I have tried to be fair in my summation of where Spiked stands on Enlightenment humanism. The Enlightenment and Humanism have a long and complicated history and this means that all sides can pick out the bits they find convenient. In the case of Spiked, they can quite rightly point to the present pessimism in Western society.

It ignores the fact though that the Enlightenment and humanism, apart from meaning different things to different sections, did not spring, unlike Athena from the head of Zeus, fully formed and armed. It’s formulation came about as a two-fold reaction to the authoritarianism of the church and also the feudalism of the aristocracy. But it also arose as a means to kick- start an economic system that went beyond crude capital accumulation.

The Spiked approach to enlightenment humanism is very strange, on the one hand they exhort people to think for themselves, yet by their own admission they have given up and indeed are hostile to revolutionary politics.

They claim that there is no longer a left or right, yet almost invariably side with the right. They claim imperialism no longer exists yet come very close to celebrating Israel taking a stand against USA telling it what to do, as if somehow this is ‘anti-imperialist’. Those are just a few examples, and on the left, Spiked have a (not unfounded) reputation of being “contrarian”.

They seem to want a 21st century with all the gadgets and gizmo’s that money can buy with a 19th/early 20th century cultural aesthetic. For all of their railing against what they see as society’s low expectations, I think they reveal a deeper pessimism themselves, in that, they see capitalist society as the only game in town. They cannot conceive, that as Emily Dickinson said, “this world is not conclusion”.

Patriotism-Giving the Ruling Class a bigger bang for their buck since 1914

The “Remembrance” weekend has just passed, culminating in the wreath laying at the cenotaph on Sunday 8th November 2015. One cannot have missed this, as in the weeks running up to it, all of the major/minor celebrities and politicians had a poppy in their lapel. Also, in what looks like becoming a new tradition, the leader of the Labour party, has been vilified for not bowing deep enough at the cenotaph by no less than 18 media outlets.

For example, Niall Ferguson had this to say about Jeremy Corbyn, http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/NiallFerguson/article1629746.ece ‘Wear your poppy and remember: sometimes we must fight’ “The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is to journalists what fish in a barrel are to marksmen. This Remembrance Sunday he will dutifully lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, regulation red poppy in the lapel of (I predict) something more seemly than a Michael Foot “donkey jacket”.

What I want to talk about though, is why is it, that despite being told by all and sundry of online/offline military celebrants that the armed services in both WW’s fought for our political freedoms, there is still vilification against those not seen as showing sufficient supplication towards the war dead?

Kevin Rooney, in Spiked online, (a publication that I normally do not have time for, but I do respect the author), said “For the simple act of refusing to wear a poppy on his West Brom jersey, Derry-born footballer James McClean has been widely vilified. McClean refuses to wear the poppy in opposition to British militarism and out of respect for the 13 unarmed civilians who were killed by British paratroopers in his hometown on Bloody Sunday. It seems we now have such an Orwellian culture in Britain that an individual can be scapegoated for the private, moral choice of refusing to wear a poppy” –from the article, “POPPYMANIA”

It was not just Kevin Rooney that noted this strange, unspoken emotional blackmail-taking place. Angela Epstein in the Daily Telegraph, wrote, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11971586/Why-I-will-never-surrender-to-the-poppy-bullies.html “Ah, but not for Sienna Miller the wimping out option. For the actress appeared on the Graham Norton Show last Friday, sans flower, despite the fact that the host and fellow guests were all wearing one. But even former defence minister Sir Gerald Howarth waded in–on what was clearly a slack day on the pundit circuit – to remark of Miller`s conduct: “There should be no excuse for not wearing one so we can honour the war dead.” And so the annual Poppy Police have claimed their first, high profile scalp”

There has been a distinct sense that though people have the right not to wear the poppy, for those who do not, then questions are asked. Especially, if you happen to be left/liberal and question current militarism, the snide underlying question, as happened in WW1, is that if your not pissing poppies, that you must want the Boche/Frogs/Tommie’s/ISIS to win. It seems that the only time w/c views are sought from the state, its for endorsing a reactionary policy or for going to war.

The poppy has become, for the last 30 years or so at least a highly political (with a small “p”) event, which is meant to instil (via a process of dark irony that Machiavelli would have appreciated), a sense of militarism, shore up martial pride. A case in point is that the RAF aircraft in the picture above is covered in poppies.

As the BBC makes clear, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/remembrance/how/poppy.shtml) “Why the Poppy”, ‘Once the conflict was over the poppy was one of the only plants to grow on the otherwise barren battlefields. The significance of the poppy as a lasting memorial symbol to the fallen was realised by the Canadian surgeon John McCrae in his poem In Flanders Fields. The poppy came to represent the immeasurable sacrifice made by his comrades and quickly became a lasting memorial to those who died in World War One and later conflicts.” It should be noted that McCrae, became a pacifist based upon his experiences in WW1.

For Cameron, as for Blair, (to give but two examples), photo-ops with WW12/WW2 veterans gives a much needed kudos. It also says; ‘We need a strong military, as this old soldier would tell you, how could you disagree?’ It is also used as a political credit to justify any current conflicts; the UK is not at peace, though the notion of “peace” is being used to fight more wars. The British Legion, is a good example of the usage of moral blackmail, that has become commonplace, after Lloyd Georges promise to “build a land fit for hero’s” was abandoned as quickly as it was uttered.

Rod Tweedy, writing in “Veterans for Peace” on November 5th 2015, shares my distaste for this organisation when he says “With its links to the arms trade, increasingly militarised presentation of Remembrance, and growing commercialisation and corporatisation of the poppy “brand”, it’s time to reconsider whether the Royal British Legion is still suitable to be the “national custodian of Remembrance”. Furthermore that “the Royal British Legion’s status as the self-appointed “national custodian of Remembrance” has been compromised through its collaboration with some of the world’s most controversial arms dealers, its increasingly militarised presentation of Remembrance, and its commercialised and trivialising corporatisation of the poppy “brand””

It is also important to keep in mind that, “One striking manifestation of the synergy between the British Legion and the British arms trade is its relationship with BAE Systems, who in 2003 not only funded sales of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, Libya, and the Middle East, but also the RBL’s annual Remembrance events. As the Telegraph noted, “a decision by British defence manufacturer BAE Systems to sponsor this year’s Poppy Day has been likened to ‘King Herod sponsoring a special day reserved to prevent child cruelty’”. The Legion’s £100,000 sponsor and “platinum corporate member” is not only one of the world’s most profitable arms companies (as the world’s third largest arms producer its revenue in 2013 was $26.82 billion) but also one of its most controversial.

One of its main markets is Saudi Arabia, which the British Intelligence Unit ranked 163rd out of 167 countries in its “democracy index” – just above North Korea and Syria. Despite the “King Herod” associations, the Legion has maintained and even strengthened its relations with arms traders. This year (2015), for example, the British Legion’s annual ‘Poppy Rocks Ball’ is being sponsored by Lockheed Martin UK, the subsidiary of the world’s largest arms supplier, Lockheed Martin; the slightly grander Poppy Ball is sponsored by Sphinx Systems Limited, who manufacture handguns and pistols”. http://veteransforpeace.org.uk/2015/my-name-is-legion/.

As Yevgeny Yevtushenko, in his poem ‘Loss’ wrote, “We buried our icons. We didn’t believe in our own great books. We fight only with alien grievances” and how fitting this line; “So many impostors. Such “imposterity.””.

There is no doubt that for many, I dare say the majority, the poppy and remembrance day means something, that for them it is about honour to the dead. Whatever my personal feelings, I would never decry that genuine sentiment.

But it cannot be left there, as it has become, whether it is willed/wished for or not much more than that. Britain did not fight World war one, for “freedom”. Nor was it fought to save “plucky little Belgium”, lets remember that it was one Empire, coming to the aid of another Empire, against a third. Empires, by their very nature, are not made with mom and apple pie; rather they are forged and maintained with blood, fire and steel.

So, today I have not worn a poppy of either colour, red or white (I am not and have never been a pacifist), I turned off the TV when the cenotaph ceremony came on. Instead, I went onto Facebook and noted that a number of people were using the time to state what today meant to them.

I have asked and received permission from my FB friend Roz Kaveney to publish her poem below, which is a summing up that I like to think the WW1 trench poets would have approved of. I am also going to include another one by Isaac Rosenberg below it. The links below also sums up what I feel about today and what the act of “remembrance” means. I deliberately did not include the clip from “Blackadder Goes Forth”, as the one from the Kubrick film, seemed to me, to be a way in which people were able for a few brief minutes, to see each other as people not “The Enemy”…

For every poet gas flame in their throats
Who scramble scrawled last verses in the mud
Each child whose flower blasted in the bud,
Musician detonation deafened notes

Nurses their wounds unbandaged and no bed
To make for them except a random grave
Civilian dead whom voting working praying did not save

This is the day we’re silent for the dead, whom praying cannot help, and there is gold in vaults somewhere that’s smeared with so much blood. Some planner might have stopped it – yes they could-
Yet profited from calculation cold. Colder than all those dead
Let memory be rage as well as sorrow sympathy

I snatched two poppies
From the parapet’s ledge,
Two bright red poppies
That winked on the ledge.
Behind my ear
I stuck one through,
One blood red poppy
I gave to you.

The sandbags narrowed
And screwed out our jest,
And tore the poppy
You had on your breast …
Down – a shell – O! Christ,
I am choked … safe … dust blind, I
See trench floor poppies
Strewn. Smashed you lie.

≈ Comments Off on Response to Accusations of Jeremy Corbyn being an Anti-Semite

Response to Accusations of Jeremy Corbyn being an Anti-Semite

Originally, this was written in response to an ultra Blairite on Facebook, who saw fit to post the Jewish Chronicle link and then get his friends to make snide comments. As the response it quite long, I decided to post this to my blog, (http://wp.me/p3gObM-R) and only post part of it on Facebook as a status update.

The accusations against Jeremy Corbyn have been myriad alleging that he’s an anti-Semite through his past various associations. The accusations have come from the right (Hello Louise M) and the center-left clustered around the Blairites (Yes Bloodworth, Cohen, Aaronovitch, etc we are most definitely looking at YOU), through to the media and blogs.

On the one level as Macbeth said, “it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Yet it cannot be left there to stand, as it also has wider consequences for left-wingers and the Labor movement overall. So, let us go through the Jewish Chronicles (JC) list of questions shall we, as part of a general refutation of these allegations

1. Did you donate, as alleged by its founder, to Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR), a group that publishes open anti-Semitism, run by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen-an organisation so extreme that even the Palestine Solidarity Campaign refuses to associate with it?

Given how quickly the JC is quick to scream “anti-Semite”, I think it interesting politically how the same publication is taking the claims of Paul Eisen seriously. As a number of Jewish socialist comrades have indicated to me, the actual premise of the DYR was a sound one. A number gave support in the beginning, via a “like” on FB, as there was no indication that AT THAT time Paul Eisen was a holocaust-denier. Btw, thanks for the two for one slur that implies that the PSC is also by inference anti-Semitic just not as anti-Semitic as Eisen

Incidentally, do you not think that Mr. Eisen himself would have been as pleased as punch to publish ANY evidence that Corbyn had made a financial contribution, POST the time when Eisen revealed himself too be pond scum? Hell it seems that the Chronicle, Jacobson, Bloodworth, Mensch, etc themselves, despite digging cannot find any evidence (pssst, pssst, pssst; maybe get Alistair Campbell on the case as he can find WMD’s in 45 minutes, so finding this smoking gun should be a piece of piss)

3. Why have you accepted an invitation to appear at a conference on August 22 alongside Carlos Latuff, the notorious anti-Semitic cartoonist?

He has withdrawn from this conference, however, even if he had not, do you check out every intimate political detail of the people you are going to be at a meeting/platform/conference? However, regarding Carlos and his “notorious” anti-Semitism, where is the evidence for this from the JC? My research has found this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Latuff

In addition, if you Google his name and click on the images section then Jewish Chronicle readers can gain some measure of his art. Surely, a more worthy exercise, than posting a statement that appears to be genuine, yet actually lacks substance

4. Why did you write to the Church of England authorities to defend Rev Stephen Sizer, a vicar banned from social media because of his habit of posting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, telling them that Rev Sizer was “under attack” because he had “dared to speak out over Zionism”?

You are conflating two issues, Jeremy Corbyn wrote to the Church authorities two years before the 9/11 ‘conspiracy’ post about a different matter altogether. At this point Mr. Sizer was involved in a dispute about his involvement in Middle East political issues and Mr. Corbyn supported his right to do so. It was much later that Mr Sizer was found to have posted the link to the 9/11 article and then disciplined by the Church. He made no intervention on his behalf or in his support on that question. Neither was he asked to. Mr Corbyn wholly rejects the conspiracy theory and ‘truther’ theories about the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001, which are distressing to the families and friends of those lost and hurt on that day and very often involve antisemitic views to which he has-and always will be-opposed.

5. Why do you associate with Hamas and Hezbollah and refer to them as your “friends”?

I can only conclude that you had not seen this; http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/articles/speech-palestine/ however beyond that, let us take a further look at this. Hamas (and you do not have to like them or support their program) are currently the legitimate authority in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon are major political players. Both have been leading resistance to the almost at times willful attacks by Israel on areas that the latter have held under harsh occupation. Regarding Hezbollah, it is an open secret that they have become our ‘allies’, in the fight against ISIS in Syria; certainly the American military has no problems talking to them.

As you can see the negotiations have been at the indirect level, would it not have been better if they had been direct? But perhaps I should not mention that Israel killed the main Hamas representative who not only negotiated the last two truces but also arranged the release of Gilad Shilat, the IDF Corporal.

Still on the question of dubious associations, I hope that no one will mind me pointing out that Begin described Henry Kissinger as a “friend”. It was because of Kissinger that Cambodia was bombed back to the stone age, and also in part through him, that the Khmer Rouge were re-armed after the latter were ousted from power by the Vietnamese.

Then of course, there is the fact that the Israeli government sold arms to the Apartheid regime, while that same regime was imprisoning and torturing Jewish members of the ANC. From the late 1940’s, onwards the SA governments contained several members who were open anti-Semites.

6. Why have you failed to condemn the anti-Semitic posters and banners that dominate the annual Al-Quds Day rally, sponsored by the Stop the War Coalition, which you chair?

Sorry but on this one, you do not give a date/place for this? One is surely entitled to ask why it is that having made such a serious accusation; you have no link, no pictures from ANY source. Are you relying upon the fact that you expect ALL of your readers to take your word for it?

7. Why did you describe Raed Salah, a man convicted of the blood libel, as an ‘honored’ citizen?

His request to be released on bail while awaiting the outcome of court proceedings despite the Home Office Secretary’s decision to bar him from the country was granted on Friday, July 15 [23][24]. He was released on Monday, July 18,[24] under strict conditions that include wearing an electronic tag, observing a night-time curfew, reporting to immigration officials, refraining from public-speaking and staying at the home of a friend[25]

Palestinians in the United Kingdom, Israel and the Palestinian territories accused the Israeli government of being behind the arrest. In a statement, Home Secretary Theresa May said, “I will seek to exclude an individual if I consider that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good, and the government makes no apologies for refusing people access to the UK if we believe that they might seek to undermine our society. Coming here is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who seek to subvert our shared values.”[26]

Fatah spokesman, Ousama al Qawasami, has said that the arrest of Sheikh Raed Salah in Britain will give Israel the green light on detention and deportation and is a decision in identification and congruity with Israeli policies of racial discrimination against Palestinians.[27][28]

A judicial review of Britain’s June arrest took place on September 30, 2011; the English High Court ruled that Salah was entitled to damages due to “wrongful detention”. In response, Theresa May sought to ban Salah; a series of emails obtained reveal her correspondence with the Community Security Trust (CST) [29] who consider Salah to be an anti-Semite.[30]

On October 26 an immigration tribunal concluded that May had been justified in her position. The tribunal stated that it is “satisfied that the appellant has engaged in the unacceptable behavior of fostering hatred which might lead to intercommunity violence in the UK. We are satisfied that the appellant’s words and actions tend to be inflammatory, divisive, insulting and likely to foment tension and radicalism.”[31]

Salah successfully appealed the decision when a tribunal ruled that the grounds for expelling him or denying him freedom of speech in Britain were too weak and that there was no reason to believe he was a danger to British society.”[32]
So to be clear, Jeremy was speaking at an event, beside someone who had been subject to the overweening power of the state and had via the judicial process, been able to overturn the excessive usage of state power and you think that this is a bad thing?

So, does the Chronicle speak for ALL of the UK Jewish community, as is the modus operandi of Zionists that it and only it are the default spokespeople for the Jewish community? The only thing that the Chronicle got right was the fact that racism and extremism are considered to be beyond the pale. This then raises the important point. Namely as to why it is that you seem hell bent upon pursuing a man whose record on human rights is well documented, especially in contrast to the other candidates.

However, if you are going to prate on, about the alleged anti-Semitism of Jeremy Corbyn, then let me leave this here. Back in June 2015, despite the anti-Jewish demonstration by Joshua Bonehill being banned, the far right still planned upon marching. Both Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall are prominent members of “Labor Friends for Israel”, the ONLY candidate to send a message of support to the counter demonstrators organized by JewDass, was that infamous Jew hater, Jeremy Corbyn.

August 19th-22nd 2015 update: It seems that I have not been the only one disturbed by the McCarthy-like atmosphere. Several prominent people from the Jewish community have written a letter, to the Jewish Chronicle expressing their repugnance at the original article. There is also this: http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/142656/jeremy-corbyn-responds-jc’s-seven-questions. It is obvious that the purpose of the JC article was not whether there was any validity to the claims. Rather it was to make an association in the public eye and mind of Jeremy Corbyn with the most distasteful anti-Semitism.